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Execution notice signed for Pennsylvania state trooper killer Eric Frein

The Notice of Execution setting June 22 as the date of execution for Frein was signed by Pennsylvania Secretery of Corrections John Wetzel. But the notice will have no immediate effect due to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf's moratorium on executions.

Under Pennsylvania state law, if the governor doesn’t sign a warrant of execution within a certain time, the secretary of the Department of Corrections has 30 days to issue a notice of execution. Wolf, a Democrat, has said he will grant a reprieve each time an execution is scheduled until the state Legislature addresses problems identified in a 2018 report. Wolf has called the system “ineffective, unjust and expensive.”

Pennsylvania has only executed three inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s, and all three had given up on their appeals.

Approximately 1,000 law enforcement officers from state and federal agencies participated in the search for Frein, a grueling manhunt that spanned through the Pocono Mountains.

K9 units search for suspect Eric Frein, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014 in Canadensis, Pa. Frein, a suspect in the fatal ambush of a trooper has occasionally made himself visible to officers before melting back into the forest, and police found empty packs of Serbian-branded cigarettes and soiled diapers believed to have been left by him, Pennsylvania State Police said Wednesday. (AP Photo/The Times-Tribune, Jake Danna Stevens) WILKES BARRE TIMES-LEADER OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT
(Photo:
AP Photo/The Times-Tribune, Jake Danna Stevens
)

Wolf has previously gone on record stating that he will grant a reprieve each time an execution is scheduled until the state legislature addresses issues listed in a 2018 report.

A statement from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections said Wolf "Issues temporary reprieves if a warrant reaches his desk without further appeals," though "we are not at that point in this case."